1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a protective cover assembly primarily designed to enclosed a mobile delivery cart of the type used for the distribution of a variety of items, at least some of which should be maintained in an at least partially sterile environment, such as items used in hospitals or like medical facilities. The cover assembly includes an enclosure formed of flexible, preferably hypo-allergenic material which, when expanded into an operative position, substantially surrounds and encloses the cart as well as its contents, thereby facilitating the maintenance of the preferred sterile environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Manually powered or propelled carts, hand trucks, bins, and the like are widely known and used in a variety of both commercial and domestic applications and typically involve the temporary storage and transport of a variety of items from one location to another in the same physical facility. Carts of the type referred to may take a variety of structural designs and configurations depending upon their intended use and/or the items which they are intended to contain. Such structural variations include carts designed to carry open top bins that are primarily designed to contain a plurality of loosely stored items. Examples may include grocery carts and carts used in hotels that carry a number of bins holding soap bars, containers of shampoo, etc. More structurally complex carts exist, however, which include a plurality of shelves, open or closed compartments and/or segregated areas, and are therefore, designed to contain a plurality of products or items of the same kind or class, in at least a minimally segregated manner. The size of such carts, bins, hand trucks, etc. can also vary from relatively small push carts, of the type found in grocery stores and like retail establishments, to much larger carts, which often times approximate the size of the person propelling the cart and which are primarily used in industrial or other commercial environments.
One area in which mobile delivery carts are used extensively is in the medical field, wherein such carts are used to deliver a large variety of items throughout hospitals or other medical and patient care facilities. Such items include, but are not limited to, surgical gowns, scrub apparel, sheets and pillow cases as well as like bedding materials, surgical masks, shoe covers, hair covers, and any of a large variety of other medical products or devices necessary for proper patient care. In the hospital setting especially, it is important that at least some of these products be sterile and totally free of germs. Thus, certain ones of these products are pre-packaged in a hermetically sealed or otherwise sterile wrapping. Still others of these products, however, are not pre-packaged, but should still be maintained in a substantially sterile environment. Preferably, a substantially sterile environment should also be maintained for all of these items as they are transported from a supply station to their respective destinations within a hospital or similar patient care facility. During the distribution and/or delivery process, items of the type set forth above are typically stored on mobile delivery carts as they are transported along a predetermined delivery route within and distributed throughout the physical facilities of the hospital or like institution.
During the time it takes to deliver the variety of items or products contained on such delivery carts, it is desirable to maintain, at least as much as practical, a substantially sterile environment for the storage of such items as they travel along the aforementioned delivery route. This is particularly true in hospitals and the like where some germs, bacteria and infectious diseases may be carried in and transmitted by contact ith the air. In that delivery carts of the type used in hospitals normally are “open”, to the extent that one or more sides of the cart comprise a plurality of openings to facilitate ready access to the products being delivered, there is a recognized need for some type of cover dimensioned and configured to somewhat protect the delivery cart as well as the contents therein. It would be beneficial if a cover were developed that could effectively isolate the contents of the cart and, as much as possible, to maintain a substantially sterile environment on the interior thereof, regardless of whether the contents of the cart are pre-packaged or not. In addition, it would be highly beneficial if a cover were developed that were adequately structured or reinforced to the extent of significantly reducing the possibility that such a cover will be torn or ruptured which is quite possible as deliveries are made, and which would, thereby compromise the sterile environment under the cover, i.e., the interior portions of the cart and its contents. It would also be highly beneficial if a cover of the type referred to above were developed that could further aid in the maintenance of a substantially sterile environment by being formed of a flexible, strong, hypo-allergenic material which, in addition, is capable of being selectively oriented in either a collapsed, stored position or an extended, operative position wherein the operative position includes a hollow interior dimensioned to substantially cover the top and exposed sides or faces of the cart. Of course, any such cover should enable a person to easily access the contents of the cart, albeit in somewhat of a restricted manner, so as to reduce exposure of the interior portions of the cart under the cover, as well as its contents to the surrounding environment.